Spring retreat - day five

After another very good rest, I woke to a forest full of bird song.  The night's rain had given way to a mist, though not so heavy as on previous mornings.  For the first hour or so, I simply walked around the campsite and lakeshore, down the track to the road, and in the woods immediately surrounding the campsite, listening and looking for birds.  Robins sang everywhere.  A trio of northern flickers sqabbled in a large snag.  Mixed flocks of chickadees, yellow-rumped warblers and white-breasted nuthatches moved along the lakeshore.  Blue jays called harshly.  The kingfisher rattled from a perch on the far side of the lake.  Song sparrows sang from shrubs and the underbrush.  A pine warbler buzzed from the top of a pine.  Black and white warblers sang overhead.  A spotted sandpiper flew off in alarm as I approached too close.  A red-breasted nuthatch came to visit, along with a brown creeper.  In the distance, a ruffed grouse drummed dreamily.

The diversity of birds around Green Lake came as a pleasant surprise.  I had already been visited regularly by a northern raven, followed a squirt of song to a winter wren, flushed a turkey, listened to a wood thrush fluting deep in the forest, and lay in the dark listening to the distant hoot of a barred owl.  At one point, a very large bird of prey flew noisily overhead, clutching something in its talons.  I caught only a glimpse of the bird, through the trees and silhouetted against the bright sky, but it looked like an osprey (though there are no osprey nests on the lake).

After a late breakfast of corned beef hash, I took to the canoe and fished until 4:30 PM, trying everything:  trolling deep down the center of the lake; nymphing toward and away from the shoreline; casting a streamer into the lakeshore structure; trolling a streamer along the shoreline at the drop-off line.  Only one fish took my fly:  an overly optimistic sunfish, which tried to take a streamer almost as long as itself.

I pointed my canoe back toward camp when thunder began to mutter in the distance.  When the threatening storm seemed to hold off, I stayed in the canoe just offshore from my campsite, drifting a brassie on a strike indicator at various depths, and then casting a small nymph well-coated with float-em, in the hope that it might act like an emerger.  Very slowly the thunder came closer.  At 6 PM, the clouds dropped over the peak of the hill, hanging there like spider webs.  I paddled to shore and made supper under my shelter.  Just before 7 PM, a small but intense thunderstorm finally rolled overhead.  I retired to the car to drink my coffee, eat cookies, and write a bit.

Several times during the day, I had come close enough to an emerging mayfly to watch the process.  The mayfly lies on the surface, caught in the surface tension, with its head arched above the surface, and the "shuck" just below.  The fly pulls free of the shuck in 15 - 30 seconds, then sits atop the surface film for another 10 - 15 seconds while its wings unfold properly.  Then it lifts into the air.

I wish that could adequately describe how night came on.  After the first storm had passed, I walked to the point about 30 m from my camp, hoping for a sight of the beaver as it emerged for the night.  More thunder rumbled faintly.  The mist hung over the lake, sagging sometimes to shroud the tops of the trees.

Slowly the trees merged into a dark band along the lakeshore.  The sky remained lighter, with a dusty, blue hue.  Both trees and sky reflected on the mirror-still water.  A few raindrops pocked the glassy surface, then a few more.  A gentle, steady shower developed.  I stood in the shelter of a hemlock, snug up against the dry, rough bark.  Across the lake, against the hill, a ribbon of mist seemed to sink lower, and a minute later, a curtain of heavier rain hissed over the water.

For five minutes, the rain dinted the surface of the lake, raising droplets in reply, so that the lake surface seemed alive.  Darker swirls appeared on the water:  only the wind whirling in small downdrafts, but the shadows seemed to lurk and move just under the surface, like spirits.

When the rain passed, the lake had grown too dark for photographs.  Nearer, the trees still stood apart; across the lake, they rose in a solid silhouette, with the tallest pines blurring in the trailing mist.  The beaver finally appeared, rounding the opposite point and passing about forty feet away.  He move in and out of the darker reflections of the trees, silent and steadfast.

All along the far shore, the peepers now called, with a lone tree frog joining them.  The thunder grew closer again, but the air had fallen utterly still.  A bat flitted past over the water, seeming more a toy than something real, with a hint of silver in the wings and an unsteady, irregular rhythm.  Now and then, the sky glowed briefly red from the approaching lightning.

The lake grew almost as dark as the trees.  Little breezes began to shiver like ghosts over the surface.  The thunder grew deeper, louder, longer, as the flashes behind the clouds changed from the dull orange of dying embers to the white heat of live coals.

I stayed in rapture on the lakeshore as long as I dared, thinking to myself that God has made places in the universe more spectacular, but surely not so sublime.

Finally, the lightning and thunder grew too close, and I become increasingly uncomfortable under the tall trees along the lakeshore.  I left the dark lake to its watery spirits and retreated to the car -- beating the downpour by about 90 seconds.  I watched the spectacle of the storm from the car, and when it passed, settled into my tent for the night.


Spring retreat - day four

The rain swept over Green Lake in the evening of the third day.  It began with scattered drops on the surface of the lake as I fished about 7 PM, grew in intensity as I made supper under the tarp and shelter, and rattled deafening on the tarp as I ate.  I could hear nothing else.  Carrying on a conversation would have been difficult.

The rain continued during the night, bringing unfamilar sounds.  Sharp raps on the tarp, like someone tapping it with a stick.  Noises like footsteps.  A tree or large branch crashing in the forest.  Spooky.

However, the extra effort to set up camp on the first day proved its worth.  I cooked and ate my supper out of the rain, slept in a dry tent, and woke rested to another misty morning.

After breakfast, I drove to Kate's and Dunc's Lakes.  The track into the lakes seemed hardly more than a wide trail, as it wound through the woods, threaded between low beaver ponds, and climbed over oaky ridges.  However, regular use had kept it clear of brush and passable to within a few hundred meters of the lakes.

The lakes appear very different.  Dunc's has a very shallow, mucky periphery.  I waded the south end, where a reedy marsh made the footing a little more secure.  Even so, I felt nervous wading on my own, and I took extra care to watch for holes and beaver channels.  Nothing seemed to rise on the lake, so I cast streamers over the flats toward the edge of deeper, darker water.  Once or twice I tried to ease out from the edge of the reeds to get my fly closer to the drop-off, only to find the deeper muck unnerving.

The clouds had broken up a bit, showing patches of blue sky.  Sunlight and shadow passed over.  In the patches of sunlight, I could see the flats clearly and watched keenly for anything following my fly.  Once, during a retrieve, I spotted a trout break from the deeper water to chase something over the flats; but it had turned and retreated again before I could lift my rod and reposition my line.  Most of the time, though, a fitful breeze rippled the lake surface, and I cast blindly, slowing working along the edge of the marsh.  After about 90 minutes of fishing in thigh deep, cold water, I began to feel cold and clumsy.  I tenderly picked my way to shore, easing cautiously into each step.  Back on shore, I ate some lunch to restore my energy, then walked 10 minutes to Kate's Lake.

The walk to Kate's Lake provided the most rewarding part of the day.  Passing a small wetland, I saw a barred owl fly up into a tree.  It perched nonchalantly as I fumbled quietly in my bag, only to fly deeper into the woods out of sight as I finally pulled out my camera.  However, the camera proved useful for capturing the early buttercups, round lobed hepatica, and patches of walking fern along the trail.

Kate's is a classic shield lake:  rocky, deep, clear.  Without a canoe, I could only cast from the shore.  After about twenty minutes, a older man came strolling down the trail with his golden lab.  He'd caught trout here last spring he said, but a bit later, when the blackflies and fiddleheads were out.  Also in the winter, through the ice.

I fished a while longer after he left, still without success.  At one point, as I sat on rock, dangling a leg toward the water, a northern water snake startled me by swimming just below my shoe.  A few feet further, it slowed eased out of the water, tasting the air carefully as it did so.  On the hunt for frogs, I assume.



Spring retreat - day three

The drizzle that began in the evening turned to rain showers through the night.  I slept well, though:  warm and comfortable in my dry tent.  When I woke at 6 AM, an enchanted mist hung over the lake.  The damp and diffuse light both muted the colors of the landscape and gave them depth.  The still water formed a perfect mirror for the trees.  In the quiet and intimacy, the calls of small flock of geese echoed around the shoreline.

While eating breakfast at the shoreline, I noticed several mayflies clinging to grass at the water's edge.  Looking more closely, I identified them as Little Blue-winged Olives (Beatis sp.) -- presumably the same mayflies that had generated such interest from minnows as they'd emerged the previous two evenings.  Sadly, I hadn't counted on such an early hatch, and I'd come prepared mainly with streamers, scuds and a variety of nymphs -- mostly caddis nymphs.  No emergers.  Nonetheless, I fished from 9 AM until 3 PM, with only a few scattered showers to dampen my spirits.  Again, I tried every combination of fly, depth, and presentation of which I could think.  Apart from a couple of very optimistic sunfish, I had no success and began to suspect that the lake just didn't hold any trout.

Late in the afternoon, with the rain still holding off, I decided to hike to the top of the hill at the northwest end of the lake -- intrigued by the rock outcrops visible on the slope through the bare trees.  Hiking along the south shore of the lake, I came into a stand of stately, mature beech trees in a shallow valley.  I think that few trees look as beautiful as a mature beech, rising in the forest like a column of smooth, gray stone.  And then, at the bottom of the valley near the lake shore, a real surprise:  a shagbark hickory at what must be almost the northern limit of its range.

A delightful forest of beech, oak, basswood, maple and white pine covered the southeast slope of the hillside.  Impressive rock outcrops broke up the slope, providing footholds for ferns, moss and wildflowers.  Crevices and dark stone recesses lay at the bottom of the larger cliff faces, many of which clearly provided dens for wild animals -- especially porcupines, as evidenced by the accumulation of woody pellets at many of the entrances.

An open, oak woodland covered the top of the hill.  It didn't offer the same prospect as the rock bald atop Blueberry Mountain; but it felt light and airy, and gave good views of Green Lake and the Clyde River Valley.

On the way down the mountain, I followed one of the small brooks that feeds Green Lake.  It ran through a shallow gully into a rich cove, diving underground for a short distance and emerging again as a small spring below a rock outcrop.  Nearby, another outcrop dripped with seepage -- perhaps the beginnings of some future cavern.  More spring wildflower bloomed beside the creek.  Near the bottom, in tangle of brush, a winter wren squirted out its hurried, dipsy song.

It was a good day for plants: red and white trilliums, wild columbine, wood anemone, downy yellow violet, dutchman's britches, early saxifrage, enchanter's nightshade, polypodium, smooth cliff fern (Woodsia glabella), as well as the shagbark hickory and, on the way back along the shoreline, a white oak.

I arrived back at camp at the start of twilight and ate supper in the dark.  The wet weather ended any hope of a fire for the night (or the remainder of the trip).  After washing the dishes, I sat for a while in the car listening to "Ideas" on CBC Radio -- a very interesting episode in a series called, "Beyond Atheism."

Spring retreat -- day two

I slept restlessly my first night, bundled against the cold in two sleeping bags, long underwear and a hoodie.  I woke at 6 AM with a kink in my neck and assorted aches and pains, especially in my casting arm.  Slowly I worked my way out of the tent into the frosty morning.  The lake still lay in shadow, with dawn slowly creeping from behind the pines on the far shore.  After half an hour watching the sunrise over the lake, I fired up my backpack stove, brewed some instant Starbucks coffee (what an improvement that has made to camping) and prepared some instant oatmeal with dried cranberries.  I ate breakfast on my stool at the lakeshore.  Birds sang about me in the trees.  A beaver slapped the water along the far shore.  The sun finally climbed high enough to embrace the shoreline.  I began to feel warm and well.

After washing my breakfast dishes, I drove 15 minutes to the property of Howard Clifford -- "Cliffland", as he calls it.  Howard owns 800 acres of forest in Lanark County, on which he has granted a 999 year easement over 500 acres to the Madawaska Land Trust.  Howard generously showed me around the property, in the company of his two dogs, Pepe and Sable.  Together we set out for Blueberry Mountain and Pike's Peak -- two high points on the ridgeline that dominates the property.  Along the way, Howard took me on a detour past a waterfall and then a small cedar swamp, which miraculously seemed to have escaped past logging.  Here he showed me the largest Eastern White Cedar that I've ever seen.  A fantastic specimen, probably 300 - 500 years old.

The views from Blueberry Mountain and Pike's Peak made the climb worthwhile.  Heath-like areas of rock outcrops, blueberry bushes, juniper and serviceberry covered large areas of slope, particularly along the southwest side, while a pretty woodland of pine and red oak (with some white oak mixed in) trailed along the ridge.  Howard believes that Pike's Peak is the highest point in Lanark County, although my topographic maps appear to show differently.  Nonetheless, from our vantage we could look out past the chain of beaver ponds along the foot of the ridge, across Flower Lake, over several hundred square kilometres of the Madawaska Highlands.  Unfortunately, our time at the top seemed too short, as Howard had errands to run with his wife in the afternoon.  We had enough time enough for quick drink, but not enough time to appreciate fully the delicate shades of the forest:  the dark greens and dusty blues of the evergreens, the greys and nascent yellow-greens of the newly-leafed maples, poplars and birch.  On the way back down, however, we did have time to pause at a beaverpond to eat our lunch and watch turtles.

On the drive back to camp, the clouds began to move in and I felt a chill in the air.  The kink in my neck, combined with a sudden resurgence in my hay fever, had worked itself into a blinding headache.  I took a decongestant, an antihistamine and two ibuprofen and retreated to my tent for a nap, where I slept until 4:15 PM.  Feeling much better, I got up and made some supper.  Then I went out into the canoe and fished until after dark.

A light drizzle began to fall soon after I began fishing:  not enough to drive me back to shore, but enough to chill me insidiously, without my notice until I'd started to shiver.  I paddled back to shore, made some hot chocolate, and sipped it in the car, with the engine and heater running.  I ate cookies and listened to the radio until I felt warm enough to move into my tent for the night.